Leander Paes and Cara Black

Avatar Dethrones Titanic As Highest Grossing Movie Ever

After months of claiming the top spot at the box office week after week, James Cameron’s animated film Avatar has officially become the highest grossing movie of all time. With over $1.8 billion in ticket sales in just 39 days, the film has outshined the previous leader, Titanic, also a Jame Cameron film.

The next step for Avatar is to top Titanic’s domestic revenue record – $600.8 million, and Avatar is well on its way with $555 million in domestic revenue already. There is also a lot of buzz about possible Oscar nominations for the film, which could put Avatar in a place that no film has gone before – $2 billion in worldwide profit.

Do you think they’ll make it? Anyone reading this who HASN’T seen Avatar yet? Will you buy the DVD or do you think this is a theatre-only film because of the 3D animation?

British journalist Jessica Hines shocked everyone with claims that her son Jaan Harry Hines, born in 2003, was fathered by none other than Aamir Khan. Aamir denied the whole thing, and the whole thing remains unresolved. Hasn’t anyone heard of a thing called Paternity Test?

Kareena-Shahid: Jab We Smooched!

Big surprise! Kareena and Shahid kiss! The couple had been very vocal about their relationship status. The MMS video of the two of them kissing became a rather unnecessary controversy in the year 2006.

Richard Gere-Shilpa Shetty: Angrezi Babu, Desi Mem!

At a press conference for HIV-AIDS awareness, Hollywood star Richard Gere gave Shilpa Shetty a kiss on her cheek. All hell broke loose after that – effigies were burnt, protests were carried out and a court in Rajasthan even issued a warrant for their arrests. Fortunately, nobody was arrested and the case lies suspended for the time being.

Bipasha Basu- C Ronaldo: Corner Kiss!

In 2007, there was talk that everything was not quite right between one of Bollywood’s favourite couples – John and Bipasha. Then came pictures of Bipasha partying with and kissing Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo. The news channels were buzzing but Bipasha maintained that she’d been a fan of Cristiano for five years and that they were just friends. How original!

Aamir vs Shahrukh: Khan-ons roar!

This war has been going on quietly for as long as one can remember. From time to time, one or the other says something that reminds us of it. Like the time Aamir named his dog Shahrukh. Or when Shahrukh was asked by a journalist what he would do if he woke up one day as Aamir. His reply: “I would tell the world that Shahrukh is the better actor.” Keeping it going, fellas!

Shahid-Kareena-2: Yeh Ishq Haay..!

One day Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor were the “it” couple of Bollywood, appearing in movies and talk shows together. The next, they had delivered a mega hit of a movie and broken up! Suddenly, Saif Ali Khan entered the picture and swept Kareena off her feet. Nope, not the kind of love stories Hindi movies are made of.

Shiney Ahuja: Sins-erly Yours!

In June 2009, audiences were shocked when reports surfaced that up and coming actor Shiney Ahuja had been accused of rape by his maid servant. First, he claimed it was consensual, then he apparently confessed to raping the maid. Shiney was thrown behind bars for three months and is currently out on bail. If convicted, he’ll face a minimum jail sentence of three years.

SRK @ Newark: Whose name is Khan?

Shahrukh had gone to attend an Independence Day function in the US when he was held for two hours at the Newark airport. The controversy arising from this, however, lingered on. Phone statements were made, press conferences were held and many-a-speculation took place. As with everything else in Bollywood, it soon died a natural death.

As a graphic designer, it feels great to find my customers so convinced about the power of a logo and what benefits it can earn them. However,I would say it is not just enough getting a simple logo designed for the sake of just having it. Now its time to make your logo design more exceptional and I am sure other designers will agree with me:)

Yes, I want you all to ask your designers make your logo look more conceptual and clever using the graphic designing tricks. As it is said,

a logo should not be a plain looking symbol…it should reflect you and your company’s personality.

The final result of a cleverly designed logo often appears to be very simple making it difficult for the customers to accept the high cost of their no-frills logo.

Therefore, I have compiled some famous logos here which will help you notice that a meaningful logo can leave an eternal impression on the customers.

I am sure it will be fun studying these below given logos and will definitely tempt you to think out of the box. Let’s see if you can figure out the hidden symbols….get started!!

Body Wisdom

It is a logo design for a high end day spa… the hands effectively convey relaxing massage integrated with the proximity of the “owl eyes” to clearly say “wisdom”.

Forkwire Logo

Being an Online Food Delivery service, its logo shows a fork formed into an @ symbol! Such a easy logo to remember.

Big Ten Logo

The Big Ten collegiate conference has eleven schools but they didn’t want to change their name. However, they used their logo to hide the numerical “11” in the name.

Amazon Logo

This famous logo is extremely clean and simple but this arrow might not look like more than a smile to you. Before, coming to any conclusions I would like you to know the concept behind this…it says that amazon.com has everything from a to zand it also represents the smile brought to the customer’s face.

ED Logo:Gianni Bortolotti

Designer – Josiah Jost

The designer of ED Logo – “Elettro Domestici -Home Appliances” in English, changed the concept of traditional logo designing through this logo. The designer has amazingly used the negative space to demonstrate the letter “E” and “D” making the logo look like an electric plug.

Eight Logo

This logo is too good to be ignored….it is very cleverly designed with a typeface where every letter is a variation of number 8. Nothing better have been thought.

Elle Hive Logo

It is a company which designs compact tractors. The letters “E” and “H” make up the image of a tractor.

Toblerone Logo

One of my favorite chocolates…yummy!! But trust me I never noticed the brilliant logo while enjoying my bar. You must be thinking what is there to find out as it clearly shows the Swiss Alps? Let me explain…Toblerone originated in Bern, Switzerland – A city whose name is rumored to mean, “City of bears”. When you look at it again you will find a bear in the logo.

Marriage Logo

What better logo can be used to symbolize a marriage with two mirrored “R” in the middle. No frills, no shadows, still so powerful and meaningful.

Heart Beats

Although it is quiet evident but still I liked the concept a lot. Two musical notes are bent in a way to make a heart and and headphns. The softness of this logo expresses “Love for Music“

Logo !N3K8

The complexity of this logo is its beauty. It is a business and IT consulting company based in the UK and the logo is a combination of numeric and alphabets to explain the word “intricate”.

FedEx Logo

You would say you have seen it thousand times but just to make you notice an arrow formed between the letters “E” and “X” conveying speed, direction and reliability of this amazing courier service.

Fuga

Piano Forest Logo

The designer gives the message in a subtle but evident manner by shaping piano keys like trees to resemble a keyboard/piano.

NorthWest Old Logo

The logo reflected a clever way of splitting the alphabets, N and W (north west) along with a location pointed to by the red triangle in the upper left corner. The redesign lost the charm of the original.

I’ve been using the Nexus One with TMobile since mid-December as my primary mobile phone. This is the best Android powered phone to date. It’s also the fastest and most elegant smartphone on the market today, solidly beating the iPhone in most ways. In this rapidly evolving market there is sure to be something better just around the corner. But if you are looking to buy a high end smartphone right now, this is the phone for you. The Nexus One is the Android signature device.

Our complete review is below.

Nexus One: The Big Picture

The phone looks more like the iPhone than any other phone on the market. There is no physical keyboard like the Android-powered Motorola Droid, and the tradeoff is a much slimmer design. The phone is 11.5 mm deep, slightly thinner than the iPhone 3GS at 12.3 mm. It is also slightly lighter than the iPhone 130 grams v. 135 grams). The package comes with the phone, a removable battery, 4 GB Micro SD storage card (expandable to 32 GB), USB charger and microphone headset.

The Nexus one has four functional touch buttons at the bottom of the screen (back, menu, home, search) and a navigation trackball pointing device. It also has physical power and volume controls. But most of your interaction with the phone will be through the gorgeous 3.7 inch 480 x 800 OLED capacitive touchscreen. This is the best mobile phone display on the market today, blowing away the iPhone’s 480 x 320 display. The screen is bright and alive, and an absolute pleasure to use.

This phone is also powered by the Snapdragon 1 GHz core processor, which is more than able to handle the Nexus One’s 3D graphics, multiple applications running in the background and heavy browser use simultaneously. Unlike previous Android phones, there is no slowdown or lag when you push the phone’s performance, and less of a need to kill applications to keep the device humming.

On the downside: all this hardware bling is an energy hog. The screen will self adjust brightness and Google is smart about turning down the processor when it’s not being used. But I’ve found battery life to be woefully brief, even by iPhone standards. Officially the phone has up to 7 hours talk time, 250 hours standby, 5 hours of 3G Internet use, 7 hours of video playback and 20 hours of audio playback. Unofficially, I was able to kill the fully charged battery with 1.5 hours of continuous gameplay (Robo Defense) on the full-brightness screen. Be prepared to keep this phone near a charger at all times. You can easily view what’s using the battery, though (the screen is 71% of my current usage), and then adjust the hardware or software usage to maximize battery life.

Overall the Android is a superior mobile device, particularly when paired with Google Voice. Google is calling this the first of the Super Phones. And they may not be exaggerating all that much.

Price And Availability

The Nexus One is available “in large quantities” starting today at Google.com/phone. An unlocked GSM version of the phone that will work in most countries is $529.

Google is also offering a subsidized version of the phone – also unlocked – through T-Mobile for $179. The service plan offered by Google is 500 minutes/unlimited SMS/unlimited data for $80/month. T-Mobile’s termination fee is $200, and some users might be tempted to buy the T-Mobile version and terminate immediately, paying just $379 for the unlocked phone. Google says that users terminating too soon will be charged the full price of the phone, however. But even the T-Mobile version of the phone can be used overseas on trips by slipping in a different SIM.

Google will ship the unlocked version of the phone to customers in the U.S., U.K., Hong Kong and Singapore. In the Spring they say they’ll add a CDMA version of the phone through Verizon, and set up a European store with a carrier plan via Vodafone.

U.S. users can also use the unlocked phone with AT&T, although the phone’s radio isn’t able to use AT&T’s 3G network.

Notable Software Features

The Nexus One, which runs the new Android 2.1, has a number of notable software features that make the phone a pleasure to use.

First, Google Voice is deeply integrated with the phone, as it is with all Android phones. That means you can assign your Google Voice number to the phone, and use it to make all outbound calls and text messages. In my opinion this is the single biggest selling point for Android phones, and why I won’t switch away from the platform any time soon.

Google’s Voice Keyboard is amazing. It goes way beyond the Voice Search application that was launched in 2009. Every text field in the device is now voice enabled. In most apps you can choose the microphone button and talk into the phone, which then converts your speech to text. I’ve found it to be around 90% accurate with no background noise (dropping to around 70% accuracy in a moving car). It’s easy to then go in and edit out errors. It’s a massive time-saving feature of the phone.

The Live Wallpaper feature is pure eye candy, and fun. You can choose a variety of wallpaper settings like Grass (blades of grass wave gently in front of a day or night sky), Magic Smoke (my favorite, draws smoke, clouds, water and plasmas in eye popping colors), Water (touch it and it ripples), and a Polar Clock (presents the date and time as clockwise arcs).

The new clock application, which runs automatically in the charger doc, shows the time, local weather and has easy access buttons to the alarm, pictures and music. Keep a charger next to your bed and toss out that alarm clock.

Google will also offer a Settings Backup service that backs up profile, application, ringtone and other settings to the cloud. Setting up a new Android phone after using the backup service is a breeze. Even without it I was able to set up the phone in about ten minutes with my Google contact, calendar, email and important applications.

Finally, Google has added a lot of nice graphical touches, including 3D scrolling of apps, and a new way of viewing photos using the CoolIris technology. Photos dip into the plane as it there is depth. Tipping the phone trips the accelerometer and the photos dip in the same way.

Notable Hardware Features

The most obvious hardware feature of the phone is the 480 x 800 OLED capacitive touch screen. Combined with the Snapdragon chipset the phone is a real workhorse. But Google has also included other more-than-nice touches.

The noise cancellation feature is particularly useful. The device has a second microphone on the back that monitors inbound noise and automatically cancels it out (anyone who’s used Bose noise cancellation headphones on a long flight will appreciate this). It does a great job of canceling out machinery and wind noise on the other end of the call. In my testing, call recipients noticed a substantial increase in call quality on this phone v. either the Droid of the iPhone. Look for other phones to quickly add this feature, it’s a must have.

On the downside, the phone’s primary microphone is located on the bottom of the device, to the left. I noticed that on calls, when I cradle the phone between my neck and shoulder without using my hand, my voice is often muted and can’t be heard. This is a design error that should be changed in future versions.

The phone’s camera really shines. It has a large footprint on the back of the device, larger than on most phones. It’s a 5 megapixel camera with a flash, but that description doesn’t do it justice. The macro and low light features are top notch for a mobile phone. I took the picture to the right in low light with no flash in our conference room at TechCrunch HQ.

The phone has two available docks. Both charge the device via frictionless touch points. The normal charger turns on the phone’s clock feature, as described above. The car charger turns on Google Navigation, a killer Android application that turns the phone into a connected navigation device.

Google, Purveyor Of The Nexus One Smartphone

The Nexus One is an important milestone in the smartphone market. This is a software company, frustrated with making compromises with hardware manufacturers, that has taken the product bull by the horns. HTC makes the phone, but the branding is mostly Google and it’s clear that they directed every aspect of the development of this phone. It’s Google’s vision of the perfect Android device, from the huge and beautiful screen and massively fast Snapdragon processor to the software elegance of Google Navigation, Live Wallpaper and the Voice Keyboard. When combined with Google Voice there is no phone on the market today that can touch the Nexus One.

Unlike previous Android phones, and I’ve used most of them, the Nexus One has no obvious flaws or compromises. The phone is the state of the art in mobile, and I will use it happily. Until, as I always say, something better comes along.

About AB

i think there 4 i am…….

I ain’t gonna be just a face in the crowd, You R gonna hear my voice.

My philosophy is plain n simple. I believe lyf is beautiful despite seeing the worst of ppl n hell of injustice. Dats cuz in all that tym I waz trying to do justice to myself n made lyf worth living. I believe in being adaptable n independent without bickering about others’ faults.

I’m not a philosopher. Nor a preacher and I hate ppl who are lyk dat. I believe in the policy of live n let live. Dat goz for doz who trouble ppl n for doz who give uncalled fo advises.

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Project Smile India is a non-profit organization which donates new and previously owned stuffed animals, coloring books/crayons, small toys, children’s reading books and blankets, woolen sweaters to give to children in orphanages and elderly in old age

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Project Smile India
Project Smile India is a non-profit organization which donates new and previously owned stuffed animals, coloring books/crayons, small toys, children’s reading books and blankets, woolen sweaters to give to children in orphanages and elderly in old age ho

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My name is Monica Puri Bangia. I live in Maplewood, NJ. I was born in Delhi, famous for its Northern Indian cuisine. I studied at the French Culinary Institute in NYC. My personal passion is Italian.

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Queen Elizabeth in past life, now a Dentist by profession, social activist by choice and suffering from inherent sexiness !!!